This chapter contains spoilers for Night Broken, the 8th book in the Mercy Thompson series. If you like the series, but haven't read it yet, don't read this story, go buy the book. My writing can't compare to Patricia Briggs or Rick Riordan's.
Note, I'm skipping a lot of flavor text and background info, I figure if you're reading a fan fiction about a book, then chances are you've read the book and know, at least in part, that information.
I own none of the characters, not even the OC I made as she is part of the PJaO books and anyone is free to duplicate her for their own stories. Writing a story using characters from published books, I certainly can't complain if someone likes my idea enough to run it in a different direction, but please, no slash.
Rick Riordan and Patricia Briggs own all characters.
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I also found the story I got the idea for the Shadow Travel mistake from;
s/9380435/1/Shadow-Worlds by Musafreen.
A really good story, to bad he's pretty much dropped it. I figure since we're all playing around with other people's ideas anyway, as long as I didn't copy exactly, it wouldn't be a big deal. But still, check his story out; it's well worth the read. Maybe we can convince him to restart it?
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The gun on the cover image is what I based Terry's on. It's a real weapon that fires real shells, shotgun in the case of the gun in the picture. Terry's has more decoration, including an engraving of the Drakkon she killed on the handle (made of Drakkon Ivory) and Greek lettering spelling out "End of Infinity" along the barrel. It's also a lot more powerful, but then, most of the weapons used by demi-gods are.
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The Ronald McDonald House Foundation is a real thing. They establish places for the families of children in long term care facilities to stay so they can be near their children, and the children can have someone from their family nearby. For instance; if a young child has leukemia, and the family lives a hundred miles from the nearest treatment center, The Ronald McDonald House would allow for some of her family to stay at low, or no charge, rather than forcing the parents to pay for a hotel room in addition to the hospital bills, or stay home and only visit once per week.
I strongly encourage everyone to give to this organization whenever you have some extra cash. Donation is easy, every McDonalds has a donation box near one of their registers. Please give generously; being alone while in the hospital sucks for an adult, for children, it's much worse.
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If anyone would like to do the story of Terry's first quest, or her parents, give it a whirl. Her father was a Miwok Indian, son of Hephaestus, his last name, Yutu, means 'Coyote out Hunting.' Her mother was the daughter of two different half-bloods, one the son of Aphrodite, the other the daughter of Hecate. Let me know if you're going to try, but bear in mind, the story I established for Terry pushes on some subjects that can easily offend, please tread carefully, and tactfully. Also, in both cases it'd be strictly PJaO, no crossovers.
I'm also still working out how I'm going to work children of two half-bloods. They'd still be half-bloods, but it'd be half-human, quarter one god and quarter another god. I've got a basic idea, but it hasn't played out completely in my mind yet.
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I can't believe it, but I must now admit some mistakes. One, evidently, I've been misspelling Fae. I was rereading the story and I noticed several times the word Fey instead of Fae. I'm sure it's a minor thing, after all, I've noticed enough errors to make me regret putting this story up, and showing the world how much I suck at my native language (can instead of cane, combing instead of combining, etc), but this one was a continuing error that I didn't notice. Evidently, my word program has Fey as a word, but not Fae, error now corrected.
The other major error I noticed was one of reference. I mentioned looking in the book, 'The Last Olympian' for a description of the Hephaestus cabin, it was actually 'The Lost Hero.' Sorry people, I'll try and do better. I know there have been a ton of errors throughout this story, but those were the two that are the worst IMHO.
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Λύκος
Mercy
We're all eating the pizza with Terry examining the sword. It's shaped vaguely like an oversized machete, but the blade is double edged and it looks like one of those diamond coated frying pans. It's also got some elaborate engravings and embossments made from some unusual metals. Tad is sitting next to her, admiring the blade, "An interesting weapon, do you know what it is?" I can see a frown crease his face, it's like he isn't sure what he's seeing, but he should be.
"Diamond coated Boron Carbide blade with engravings and embossments made of Celestial bronze, Stygian iron, True gold and Odblethium marble, fascinating" she says to herself.
Nico leans over, "Is True gold the same as Imperial Gold, and what's Odblethium?"
"How would you know about Imperial Gold? It's been over a century since we called it that" she says giving him a weird look. "The last reference we have to Imperial gold is before the Civil War; and even those are strictly cabin secret tomes, its name was changed afterwards."
Annabeth leans over next, "Odblethium is a naturally magical type of marble used in the construction of really important temples, statues and of course, the homes of the gods. I've never heard of it being used in a weapon before, it's nearly impossible to give it an edge. And other than weight and near indestructability, it's not got much in the way of magic. Now granted, those would be fine traits in a sword, but it doesn't grant the abilities, just has them, that particular embossment would be indestructible, nothing else. I'm surprised that there isn't Blessed silver in it instead."
"Well," Terry begins, "there is some deep magic in the symbols on the engravings, and the embossments all have the shape of what you'd make to share properties, so maybe it was designed to make a blade that had all the traits of the individual metals. And just so you know Annabeth, you can't add Blessed silver to Stygian iron without some severe problems, catastrophic problems. Hmmm, it looks almost like the symbols are…"
"Are what?" I ask when the other kids just seem to wait for her to continue.
"Hey Nico, come here, I need you to give me a hand, the blade needs to be quenched."
Nico pauses in his step as he was getting up to go over and just looks at her (as does Tad). "Oh don't be such a baby, I'm not going to kill you, I just need you to give me a hand." Somewhat hesitantly now, Nico continues over. When he gets there, Terry grabs hold of his left hand and, it comes off. Nico holds up the (only slightly) bloody stump of his left arm with a perplexed frown on his face and both Annabeth and Percy start shouting at her while Tad jumps back several feet.
I glance at everyone else, pizza half way in their mouths, expressions rather similar to Nico's. Tad looked like he was about to faint. Whatever else they are, these kids sure the hell aren't boring.
Meanwhile, Terry just looks at everyone, "What? I'll give it back. I just need to borrow it." With that, she starts to rub the bloody end over the blade, smearing the blade with Nico's blood. Holding it up, we can all hear a slight hum start to emit from the blade before dying off into silence. She then holds Nico's left stump up and reattaches the hand. Evidently, her magic is capable of that feat, because Nico immediately starts to wiggle his fingers. "Why does my hand tingle, did you do that right?"
"I drained it of blood Nico, it's like when you sleep wrong and your arm falls asleep from lack of circulation, you just have to wait for new blood to flow in."
"How; and why did you do that?" Tony snarls through gritted teeth, clearly at the edge of patience.
"Oh, my cousin Lue Elan does that all the time. She keeps taking peoples noses to play 'Got your nose,' like when you were a kid, except she's really got your nose. Normally, there isn't any blood, but I needed someone's 'Death Blood' to quench the blade. Since Nico is a child of death, I could use his without killing him. And in any case, this will greatly affect how the magic of the blade settles. Nico is, how did Rachel put it, 'A Child of Death, and a Bringer of Life.' Plus, it was blood freely given, and with no life being taken, this will result in a very different blade then if you walked up to some enemy and ran it through his chest. And hey, you never know if that whole 'Farmers Friend' thing will have an effect on it or not. Well, maybe you will know."
"By the way," she said handing the blade to Adam. "This belongs to you. Its name, written on the blade, is λύκος, Wolf in Greek."
Adam takes hold of the blade and I can feel magic stir. Adams eyes change to a bright yellow as his wolf stirs beneath his skin. After a brief stare down (can you have a stare down with an inanimate object), he holds up his arm to his mouth and rips off a junk of flesh and places it on the edge of the blade. "See me with your power, look at me with no offence taken or meant λύκος." I could feel the magic swirl about, and then reply wordlessly. "Will you join with us, to hunt, to fight, to live and run?"
Again, the magic seemed to reply, and Warren spoke, with awe in his voice, "We claim you."
"We Claim you" I echoed, the words of the ritual coming easily to my throat.
"I CLAIM you" said Adam "Alpha's flesh and blood shall you be. From this day forward. Mine to mine! PACK!" Again, the sword gave a wordless reply, and the junk of flesh seemed to be absorbed into the blade and then, through the pack bounds, a sizzling wave of magic flowed, and the entire pack became aware of its newest member. The blade, glowed with a silvery light like the glow of the Moon and the howl of a distant wolf, before fading in both light and sound. As we watched the light go dim, the blade became smaller and changed shape, till it was nothing other than a charm bracelet shaped like a sleeping wolf around Adams wrist.
We're trying to settle the pack bounds when Sam comes rushing back out, Medea, my cat, clenching firmly into the flesh of his arms with her claws to remain stable. "What just happened?"
Sam isn't part of the pack, but he is one of three werewolves in North America who is more dominant then Adam, this, combined with being in our house causes Adam to snarl at Sam. Before things can escalate, Tad steps into the conversation; "Adam has added a new pack member, a sword."
Sam just looks at Tad like he's grown a horn, but he can tell that he isn't being lied to.
I look up at Sam, "And everyone thought he was crazy when he let me into the pack, now we've got a sword as a pack member."
Adam laughs, "It's a very intelligent sword, and it likes us."
At this, Terry pops out with "It's got some really useful abilities, but you do need to be a little careful with weapons like this, the magic never quite remains static."
Adam laughs again, "Maybe it should have been named Walker, or Mercy."
"I'm not sure about that," she said. "But obviously, it can change shape as well as you can, and it will transport itself to you, or anyone it's linked to now, when you need it, or whoever in your pack needs it most. I've never dealt with pack magic before, werewolves from our world are a lot different than here. Between the various materials, if I read it correctly, you'll be able to use it on just about anyone or anything, from normal humans, to werewolves, to undead and even steel bulkheads and walls without hindrance or issue. And it'll result in their destruction if they're normally immune to mortal weapons. No, it won't work on Percy, or anyone else with his curse either, that's something special there, but if you've got a monster that just can't be killed normally, or if you just want to cut open a tank, this'll do the trick."
"Will it work on Vampires?" Adam asks with a thoughtful look.
"VAMPIRES!?" Nico blurts out, "You've got Vampires?"
"They're not all bad," Warren cuts in, "one or two are actually nice, well, one at least."
"Fairs fair" Nico says, "Why don't you tell me, us, about the ones who aren't?"